When you start a song with the words “I’m a hopeless romantic, I should run for my life”, you not only have my attention, but also my recognition. The singer’s name, Michelle Branch, sounded vaguely familiar. I immediately thought of the 90s when there was a rise of young female singers on soft, easy to listen to guitar pop, by lack of a better description. Sweet, thin vocals sung with mostly a guitar in hand, looking like the girl next door: Lisa Loeb, Jewel and even Natalie Imbruglia. She wasn’t even among them, but she was inspired by them, while she rose to fame at the start of the millennium.
It turns out I still know her from Santana’s “The Game Of Love”. I loved this song back then. All the solo hits she had before then, “Everywhere” and “All You Wanted” did not lit a spark, even though this was exactly what I thought I could expect. But she was only a teenager then and little girls grow up.
Michelle is now in her 30s and you hardly see a trace of the teenager from the old videos. In “Hopeless Romantic” it could be the heavy eye makeup, which make her Asian (Indonesian to be exact) roots more visible. It’s a real far stretch from the teenage girl who’s sitting on a bed with a guitar like in “All You Wanted”.
For some reason, I don’t really think “Hopeless Romantic” is a far stretch from the sound she had back then though. The slight hint of a sliding guitar reminds me of that one hit Neneh Cherry’s sister, Titiyo had, “Come Along”, so the song still has that nod to that 90s trend. However, there’s also something in there that reminds me of One Republic, so she has stayed on top of new music.
The song is slow and has a bit of a dark feel to it, like being a hopeless romantic is such a negative thing? Well, that depends on your perspective I guess, haha.
The vibe the video sets is very fitting to it, with the rain and her driving around but not really going anywhere. The song is definitely suited for rainy days like that, but I can imagine that it will not hold the attention of today’s teenagers. But they’ll be missing out then. Her new album, also called "Hopeless Romantic" will be released in April.
